“Better not think about it then.”
Ernest Hemingway, The Killers
New Scientist reports that
Complex decisions are best left to your unconscious mind to work out, according to a new study, and over-thinking a problem could lead to expensive mistakes.
This is in sync with Malcolm Gladwell’s observation that people are really bad at assigning proper weights to variables impacting a decision.
Thinking hard about a complex decision that rests on multiple factors appears to bamboozle the conscious mind so that people only consider a subset of information, which they weight inappropriately, resulting in an unsatisfactory choice. In contrast, the unconscious mind appears able to ponder over all the information and produce a decision that most people remain satisfied with.
I’m a long-time fan of Guatemalan worry dolls. These little guys are about 1″ tall. Dressed in brightly-colored yarn, they have a tiny pack on their backs. Before you go to sleep, you metaphorically put your worries in the doll’s pack for the night so you can sleep soundly.
Sleeping on it produces a better decision.
Thanks to Dave Pollard for pointing this one out.
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Jay,
I just loved this post, and have found and stacked up my worry dolls beside my laptop whilst I reply.
Have been thinking so much recently that I felt badgered, wolved and possibly beared – http://artichoke.typepad.com/artichoke/2006/02/i_have_been_bad.html – this post just might rescue me.
It looked like the sort of book described in library catalogues as “slightly foxed”, although it would be more honest to admit that it looked as though it had been badgered, wolved and possibly beared as well. (Terry Pratchett, The Light Fantastic).